Taylor Swift, 'Challengers,' 'Summer House' and More
Recommendations for your weekend
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I’ve considered myself to be a Taylor Swift fan since 2007 — and a devoted one, at that. I’ve been to every single one of her tours, starting with when she opened for Rascal Flatts during the summer of 2008. I’ve purchased or streamed every single one of her albums since Fearless on their release days, I attended her documentary premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, I’ve watched the interviews, read the profiles, scoured fan pages for Easter eggs — all of it. But something shifted recently, and it’s affecting how I’m receiving her latest blockbuster album, The Tortured Poets Department, which dropped last Friday, as you already know.
To be clear, I don’t think that shift came from me. The shift is in the ever-growing and ever-insatiable and ever-exhausting fandom around her. In turn, as she continues to feed that fandom, that shift is coming from her, too. The TikTok-ification of what it takes to be a fan and analyze celebrity gossip and consume music in general these days is tiring and unsustainable and impossible to keep up with, so I stopped trying to find my footing in it a while ago. Maybe it’s a generational thing, but it’s just not for me. But as every media outlet and social media account and corporation tries to capitalize off of and feed the constant appetite for anything remotely connected to Taylor, I’ve found myself being pushed in the opposite direction — almost against my will. I fucking love Taylor Swift, but the circus around her has become less appealing to me to take part in. Throughout the fall, when people lost their minds over the fact that she was showing up to her new boyfriend’s football games and dissected her outfits and read her lips and chronicled her evolving posse, I found myself shrugging and looking the other way.
When I attended the Eras Tour last Memorial Day, I felt the complete opposite of this, by the way. That four-hour experience injected new life into me; it was pure bliss. I was amongst my people and felt genuinely connected to Taylor, in spite of the growing bandwagon hoopla that enveloped her.
And so, as I started to digest not just this new album but the second surprise album she dropped two hours later in the middle of the night, I reminded myself that I still do have and feel that connection to her and her music and what she’s meant to me over the years. Even if, in this current moment of overexposure and content overload, I have conflicting feelings, it’s there.
To make sense of this web of emotion and uncertainty over how to receive TTPD, I leaned on a bunch of other, much smarter people to help me understand it and make sense of it and come to peace with it. I’ve linked to a few reviews and think pieces about Taylor and the album below, but you can also listen to some great podcast episodes about it, too: Popcast, Switched on Pop, Every Single Album and Las Culturistas, among others. I definitely didn’t agree with everything I read or listened to, but together these works helped me to unpack my own complex thoughts around this era — and for that I’m grateful.
Read
One of the best articles you could hope to read about Diddy and the allegations against him. (Craig Jenkins for Vulture)
I always enjoy hearing more about the people behind the stars, and this profile on power publicist Cait Bailey let’s us do just that. (Carson Griffith for The New York Times)
Did you know that the screenwriter of “The Challengers” is married to the screenwriter of “Past Lives,” a standout movie from 2023? Neither did I, which is just one of the reasons why I enjoyed this profile of Justin Kuritzkes. (Madeline Leung Coleman)
I learned a lot from this piece tracking the history of the music manager and how Scooter Braun might be the last one of his ilk. (Andrew O’Hagan for The New Yorker)
Fun little peek behind the curtain of how “Anyone But You” became a huge, slow-burning hit thanks in large part to a few marketing levers that Sydney Sweeney pulled. (Ashley Spencer for The New York Times)
Great insight into Highsnobiety and the blurring of the lines between what it means — and takes — to be a thriving publication in 2024. (Jessica Testa for The New York Times)
Thought I would break out the best things I read about the new Taylor Swift album:
A long, insightful, measured review that skews positive. (Ann Powers for NPR)
A long, insightful, measured review that skews negative. (Tom Breihan for Stereogum)
I also loved the analysis in this newsletter on the basis of the above two reviews. (
)Examining this moment of emerging Taylor Swift fatigue — even amongst her longtime fans, like myself. (Matt Stevens and Shivani Gonzalez for The New York Times)
Watch
Challengers (in theaters)
This one just came out this weekend after being pushed back from its original fall release date, and it was worth the wait. I finally got to see Luca Guadagnino’s sexy, thrilling movie centered around a trio of tennis players starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike :, and it over-delivered on its promise. All three leads are fantastic, the story is twisty and clever, the cinematography is unreal and the score is epic. It’s a truly exhilarating film. I cannot say enough good things about this — it’s the must-see movie of the season.
RELATED: If you’ve already seen the movie, I liked this short Vulture piece examining the film’s ending.
Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told (Hulu)
This 80-minute doc about the highly influential Atlanta street party Freaknik was awesome. It features some high-profile talking heads and provides a really fun, comprehensive retelling of the origins of Freaknik at HBCUs in the ‘80s to the more boisterous, controversial party that it evolved into in the ‘90s. I had no idea that it had such an impact on so many huge hip-hop artists’ careers and the establishment of Atlanta as a cultural capital.
Self-Promotion
Interview with “Summer House” Star Jesse Solomon (Gabbing with Gib)
This week I interviewed new “Summer House” cast member Jesse Solomon all about his first season on the show, joining the cast with two weeks’ notice, not remembering flirting with Paige DeSorbo at his first party, his friendship with fellow new addition West Wilson, weighing in on Lindsay Hubbard and Carl Radke’s relationship and more. Watch above or listen below!
“Real Housewives” Franchise Power Rankings with Ira Madison III (Gabbing with Gib)
“Keep It” podcast host Ira Madison III also joined me on my podcast this week to compare our “power rankings” of the nine current “Real Housewives” franchises based on recent seasons, upcoming seasons, star power, ratings and more. We were more or less aligned on our picks, with a few big differences! Listen below.
Currently
I saw the excellent “Stereophonic” on Broadway last night. It’s no doubt one of the most talked-about shows in New York right now, it stars a friend of mine from high school, Juliana Canfield, and it delivered on the hype.
I’m finishing off this newsletter while I make my way out to the North Fork with some friends for some R+R. Have a nice weekend, everyone!